When hawks collide: McCain splits with Lindsey Graham on whether U.S. should coordinate with Iran to help Iraq

posted at 3:21 pm on June 16, 2014 by Allahpundit

As you might expect for any foreign-policy “dispute” between Maverick and Grahamnesty, the point of contention here is whether we should intervene aggressively or really aggressively. Graham wants the U.S. in ASAP to help save Baghdad, and since that means fighting a Sunni jihadist threat that Iran’s also busy fighting right now, it also means de facto coordination. If you’re going to coordinate tactically de facto, why not just suck it up and talk to them about formal coordination? The better the cooperation is, in theory the quicker the task at hand can be accomplished. McCain, meanwhile, thinks it’s insane to be working with a country that’s spent more than 10 years aggravating the sort of sectarian resentment in Iraq that helped make ISIS possible. The only solution, he thinks, is to reduce that tension, and step one in that process is reducing Iran’s footprint in the country. In other words, the U.S. should take a larger role in the fight against ISIS so that the Iranians can withdraw.

Basically, they’re arguing over whether the U.S. should be a global cop or a global Robocop,

But the South Carolina Republican said in order to blunt Iran’s rise in the region, the U.S. must take the uncomfortable step of working with Tehran.

“The Iranians can provide some assets to make sure Baghdad doesn’t fall. We need to coordinate with the Iranians,” Graham said on CNN. “To ignore Iran and not tell them,’Don’t take advantage of this situation,’ would be a mistake.”

CNN’s Dana Bash seemed to be in disbelief: “It’s sort of hard for me to believe that I’m hearing a Republican saying, sit down and talk with … Iran.”

Seems like a shrewder strategy to “blunt Iran’s rise in the region” would be to force them to fight a two-front war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq without western help, not to start bombing their enemies while sternly warning them not to capitalize once we’re gone. McCain’s retort:

“The reality is, U.S. and Iranian interests and goals do not align in Iraq, and greater Iranian intervention would only make the situation dramatically worse. It would inflame sectarian tensions, strengthen the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), drive more Sunnis into ISIS’s ranks, empower the most radical Shia militants, deepen the Iraqi government’s dependence on Iran, alienate U.S. allies and partners in the region, and set back the prospects of national reconciliation.

“For all of these reasons, and more, the United States should be seeking to minimize greater Iranian involvement in Iraq right now, not encouraging it. That means rapid, decisive U.S. action to degrade ISIS and halt their offensive in Iraq. And it means dramatically increasing U.S. military assistance and support to moderate opposition forces in Syria that are fighting both ISIS and the Assad regime. The longer we wait to act, the more our Iraqi partners grow dependent on the Iranian regime. That is neither in our interest nor consistent with the values for which we stand.”

The X factor is Iran’s nukes, needless to say. If we make a deal with them to defend Baghdad together, the odds that Obama ends up bombing their enrichment facilities when, not if, our nuclear “deal” with them falls apart drop even further. That’s one of the reasons why Kerry supports direct talks with Iran on Iraq, I assume. The more cooperative Iran is with us on this, the more cover Obama will have later to defend his decision not to attack their program. (“They’ve showed they can be responsible actors. Relations between us have improved, reducing the threat they pose.” Etc.) Either Graham’s blind to the way the White House will use Iran’s help politically or he perceives no reason why teaming up to save Iraq would or should give the U.S. second thoughts later about bombing Natanz or Fordow. Essentially, he’s prepared to bomb Iran’s enemies this week and bomb Iran itself next.

Another way to approach this is to ask which is the bigger threat to U.S. national security — Iranian nukes or ISIS building a terrorist Disneyland in the Sunni parts of what used to be Syria and Iraq. The best outcome for America from the standpoint of cold realpolitik is a long war of attrition between them that weakens both sides, but there’s no guarantee that that happens. In fact, there’s a chance we’ll end up with the worst of both worlds: If Iran can drive ISIS out of Syria and away from Baghdad and southern Iraq, maybe they’d tolerate leaving them alone with their own little caliphate in Anbar province. Iran’s never had a problem with Sunni fanatics harassing Sunni regimes or targeting U.S. interests with terror attacks, as Al Qaeda could tell you. On the other hand, maybe ISIS is now so committed to sectarian war, if only in the name of rallying Sunnis in the region to the cause of jihad, that they won’t reach an accommodation with Iran, which means a long war. The question for U.S. strategists is how to avoid the Iran/ISIS “accommodation” scenario while also not increasing either one’s power much in the process. Is there a way to do that?

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The white house did not split from Kerry. The White House is covering the bases to have plausible deniability. They will not be “direct” cooperation with Iran,(because Obama does not want McCain to suffer a stroke) but there will be cooperation none the less. There has to be. And everyone from Tehran, Istanbul, Riyadh all the way to Washington knows that.

The white house did not split from Kerry. The White House is covering the bases to have plausible deniability. They will not be “direct” cooperation with Iran,(because Obama does not want McCain to suffer a stroke) but there will be cooperation none the less. There has to be. And everyone from Tehran, Istanbul, Riyadh all the way to Washington knows that.

coolrepublica on June 16, 2014 at 3:35 PM

So much for not negotiating with terrorists, right? Now we simply join up with them. Since you know it all, tell me.. Are Barky and the Mullahs gonna have dinner and drinks when it’s all over? Maybe a little State Dinner with Jay Z, Beyonce and the Sasquatch??

“It’s going to need more help from us, and it’s going to need more help from the international community,” Obama said Thursday. “… I don’t rule out anything because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothoold in either Iraq or Syria.” -CNN

In referring to the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as “jihadists,” Obama broke with his own administration’s policy. CIA chief John Brennan said in 2010 that Islamic jihadists were not Islamic jihadists: “They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing — absolutely nothing — holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.”

This was not just Brennan’s opinion: in October 2011, the Obama administration placed off-limits any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists, overseeing the scrubbing of all counter-terror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad in connection with terrorism. At that time, Dwight C. Holton, former U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon, emphasized that training materials for the FBI would be purged of everything politically incorrect: “I want to be perfectly clear about this: training materials that portray Islam as a religion of violence or with a tendency towards violence are wrong, they are offensive, and they are contrary to everything that this president, this attorney general and Department of Justice stands for. They will not be tolerated.”

But if the people who just took Mosul are indeed engaged in an Islamic jihad, then Islam is at least arguably “a religion of violence or with a tendency toward violence.” In this, of course, Obama fell into the chasm between his fantasy-based counter-terror policy and what is obvious and manifest reality: he knows that the warriors of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are jihadists, and in an unguarded moment, said so – thereby demonstrating the incoherence of his own position on this question.

Aiding jihadists in Syria and opposing them in Iraq

Last year, Barack Obama wanted to invade Syria on the side of the “jihadists” he is now saying must be stopped. He has given weapons to groups in Syria that he claimed were “moderate,” but which actually were collaborating with these jihadists: the Long War Journal reported on June 29, 2013, that the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, which is “al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” has “cooperated with Free Syrian Army units to establish sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo and in eastern Syria.”

What is the Free Syrian Army? The “moderates” whom we are training and to whom we are giving weapons: “the US government is backing the Free Syrian Army despite the group’s known ties to the Al Nusrah Front.”

So apparently it’s all right for the group the U.S. backs to establish Islamic law in Aleppo, but not all right for a similar and allied group to establish Islamic law in Mosul.

Barack Obama’s foreign policy is utterly incoherent, and the world is on the brink of catastrophe because of it.

Let’s say we stay 25 years: Then we leave. In come the Islamists or some equally bad Arab leader, and — at best — we are back to where we started in 2001.

Why? Because Arab nations are run by Arabs.

We need to admit something, fellow conservatives. We made a huge mistake thinking we could bring democracy to the Arabs. Can’t be done.

Stay out of the Iraq until our vital national interests are clearly threatened. If that happens, go in like the gates of hell have been opened wide and make them all regret the day they were born. They leave with a promise to repeat as necessary.

Just say no to nation-building these third world toilets. They are toilets for a reason.

The question for U.S. strategists is how to avoid the Iran/ISIS “accommodation” scenario while also not increasing either one’s power much in the process. Is there a way to do that?

Yes there is a way to do that and let me yell it out :
STOP ARMING ,FUNDING AND TRAINING JIHADIES .
JUST STOP IT. ALL THOSE KICKBACKS FROM JIHADIS INTO YOUR PACs ARE NOT WORTH IT. OH AND USE THE US MILITARY TO SEAL OUR OWN DAMN BORDERS.

After the administration blundered on Benghazi, on the Arab Spring, and Syria, Heaven itself has afforded it one last chance to set itself right. It is almost impossible for the administration to screw it up. All it has to do is……… nothing.

McLame is a war mongering hypocritical pig. He’s such a “fighter” that he refused to talk about anything in obamas past in 08, allowing obamas attacks to make that much more of a difference in his campaign.

I’ll never listen to another word either mclame or gramnesty have to say.

Air and intelligence assets and enough troops to make attacking the Green Zone suicide. Keep Baghdad in nominally friendly hands and make it difficult for these groups to get established in areas of the country that the government can’t control.

It’s in the interest of the Saudis– who are Sunni and the biggest financiers of Sunni jihadist movements everywhere– to see Iraq stabilized with the Sunni majority in charge, or at least with a larger say in the government of what’s left of Iraq. They are horrified at the prospect of Shia Iran acquiring the Islamic Bomb, and any cooperation between the U.S. and Iran that advances the prospect. (But as I’ve already said, they loathe Obama.)

I agree. We already strengthened Iran when we knocked over Iraq’s Sunni/Baathist government. And we supported these Sunnis by arming the Syrian rebels. Now – we should let them fight it out. In fact, we should provide intelligence to both sides to keep it going as long as possible.

Seems like a shrewder strategy to “blunt Iran’s rise in the region” would be to force them to fight a two-front war against ISIS in Syria and Iraq without western help, not to start bombing their enemies while sternly warning them not to capitalize once we’re gone.

Yes. Exactly.

Am I the only one thinking that in the context of the new, increasingly left-leaning Hot Air, Allahpundit has become our (only) hard-core, ruthless paleoconservative foreign policy realist?

Forces allied with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have almost certainly committed war crimes by executing hundreds of non-combatant men in Iraq over the past 5 days, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay says – @Reuters

We need to return to our old ways of war profiteering by making these wars as long, bloody and pointless as possible. A review of British policy on the Continent would be helpful, given the expertise they developed over the centuries.

The white house did not split from Kerry. The White House is covering the bases to have plausible deniability. They will not be “direct” cooperation with Iran,(because Obama does not want McCain to suffer a stroke) but there will be cooperation none the less. There has to be. And everyone from Tehran, Istanbul, Riyadh all the way to Washington knows that.

coolrepublica on June 16, 2014 at 3:35 PM

So much for not negotiating with terrorists, right? Now we simply join up with them. Since you know it all, tell me.. Are Barky and the Mullahs gonna have dinner and drinks when it’s all over? Maybe a little State Dinner with Jay Z, Beyonce and Moochelle??

We aren’t going to do sh** in Iraq. Drone strikes won’t cut it (even if they had the human intel) and Obama is gutting the real military and the money (I mean debt) will be redirected for vote-buying (and insurance company risk corridors) for the next two election cycles.

You know, I believe the situation in the ME is pretty complex. Again, these guys are more than happy to fight and die for changes that could be more than a century in the making. The West wants to come up with a quick fix. It just ain’t happening. Wake up. Either pulverize them or learn how to survive as a dhimmi.

Actually, I think this is all part of a greater plan, ie:Revelations!!

Help them kill each other. We should encourage Iran to go in there, and maybe beef up the Sunnis a little to make it as expensive for Iran as possible.

Too bad Obama didn’t drop off those 5 Taliban commanders in there to fight with the ISIS. They would fit right in. Maybe we could collect Talibans from Afghanistan and drop them in there to fight on the Sunni side.

I don’t see any of these Chamber of Commerce shills worrying about our border.

crankyoldlady on June 16, 2014 at 4:14 PM

Absolutely.

America doesn’t have to defend Iraq’s border. America doesn’t have to defend the borders of an emerging Kurdistan. America doesn’t have to defend the borders of Ukraine.

America absolutely does have to defend America’s borders. Otherwise the nation is going away, crushed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

That is the absolute core reality for anything worth calling a “defense policy” or a “security policy”.

Military action not based on that reality (like the totally pointless destruction of Libya) is an aggression policy, or an offensive war policy, or something like that.

All Chamber of Commerce shills are worthless and should not be posing as if they were “security experts” or “defense experts” or anything like that. They have nothing to do with security and defense. Their expertise, if any, is in starting counterproductive, useless, bloody, very expensive and fundamentally irrelevant wars.

No, oddly the gilled one is with you. Must have something to do with blue? – Bmore at 4:12 PM

You morons set up blogs just to attack and ridicule each other?

If I moderated here, you would be banned for posting such a link or creating such a site. It’s pure trollbait and makes HA into a trollish forum. No wonder there is so much nastiness toward other posters and hostility to your hosts. HA’s admins are cowards or simply don’t care how much you trash the forum. What are you, a bunch of inbred Freepers?

If I moderated here, you would be banned for posting such a link or creating such a site. It’s pure trollbait and makes HA into a trollish forum. No wonder there is so much nastiness toward other posters and hostility to your hosts. HA’s admins are cowards or simply don’t care how much you trash the forum. What are you, a bunch of inbred Freepers?

Toocon on June 16, 2014 at 4:30 PM

No most of us just go around calling each other morons and inbred Freepers. When we disagree with someone we might also call them trolls. We find that a satisfactory way to be nasty and hostile. Sounds like you might be on board with that Idea. Congrats. Frankly I really appreciate the hosts here at HA and generally don’t think of them as cowards at all. So we will just have to disagree on that count. Here is your link. Have a nice day.

So let’s recall some recent history shall we. Mclame and Lindsey advocated arming Syrians who were radical AQ even though they both denied that fact. Those same AQ jihadists fighting in Syria are pouring into the fight in Iraq using American arms including stinger missiles. Now one of the two nitwits, Lindsey, wants to cooperate with the terror state of Iran to fight the AQ they helped arm in Syria. the other nitwit doesnt take any responsibility for arming the Syrian jihadists. They have no credibility. We’ve elected morons and we expect what exactly?

America absolutely does have to defend America’s borders. Otherwise the nation is going away, crushed by mass immigration, both legal and illegal.

There you have it. The plan IS to have our nation, at least as we’ve known it, go away, crushed by the overwhelming influx of mass immigration.

Meanwhile instead of our armed forces protecting our own borders from an invasion, which is actively aided and encouraged by our own government, our armed forces are sent out elsewhere to be embroiled in the affairs of other nations to no good end with this admins goals in mind.

And on a good day, when AP has a full charge of caffeine and a red-meat story to tear into, she was right. He is (or can be) one of the top tier of writers of the Right blogosphere. He has a subtle grasp of politics and news analysis. I would put Ed Morrissey in the same category, a very steady performer. Also Ace and DrewM from AoS (though I stopped posting there with their screwy comment system, even worse than HA’s is).

At the end, Iran’s Quds special forces will be fighting it out with ISIS outside our glamorous embassy over who gets to take our 5,000 embassy staff hostage (or crucify them, or hold them hostage, or trade them for Gitmo prisoners, iPhones, sharia porn and lottery tickets).

See, we do agree then. I am hopeful Noah will be a great addition here as well. Lest I be mistaken some seem to not get his brand of sarcasm. Perhaps that will evolve. You are definitely one of us. ; ) P.S. Can’t do the Ace place. Too weird and the comment system sucks. I do think HA has the best comment system around. Being able to create meaningful, sometimes meaningless, conversations between commenters seems a hard code to crack for most other places I’ve been to.

The question for U.S. strategists is how to avoid the Iran/ISIS “accommodation” scenario while also not increasing either one’s power much in the process. Is there a way to do that?

For starters stay out of their way and don’t unite them by creating lists with both of them together (like the Axis of Evil). If America stays out of their way they will be forced to fight each other. This has to do with the fact that Hezbollah and Assad are also in this fight in the west so the Sunni Jihadists in Syria and Iraq will have to have peace with a lot of people which they are not capable of doing. Peace means no Jihad, and no Jihad means no Jihadist group.

America should watch for opportunities to hurt either side, when convenient, but it should be economically viable and worth the risk, like hurting the Iranian nuclear program. Just an example of why these is going to be no peace…

Actually it seems they’re arguing whether or not we should treat Iran as an ally against Al Qaeda. McCain is right that it would be nuts to do so, and Graham’s line of thinking has been adopted by the current President ( minus of course boots on the ground)

Either way it would be nuts to put boos on the ground in any scenario ( let alone in one where we’d be coordinating or worse operating in the same zone as the Iranians)

The only acceptable military scenario is for us to go hardcore desert storm on the ISIS mofos, and make it public knowledge that the same will happen to whoever ( Iranians, Shia militants etc.) don’t get the F*** out of our way.

And there isn’t a single American Politician ( GOP or D) that is willing to even suggest such a scenario, hence its irrelevant.

Iraq has been lost by this YOLO president, no amount of useless bluster from McCain or Graham is going to change that, we might as well just agree to Turkey and Iran partitioning it.

In my opinion we need to stay out of there. The sunnis will fight the shia, the sunnis will lose and be extremely weak if not nearly dead in the end. If we stay out of the fighting directly Iran will expend their resources clobbering the sunnis.

Yes, so what, Iran will win. We aren’t exactly soul mates with Iran now are we? Iraq, over a third of it anyway already is aligned with Iran. No change really, except that Iran will be a bit more beaten up in the end and the picture will be clearer once the sunnis are impaled in the middle of the desert. So much for their caliphate.

Worst case, which isn’t all that bad either, is that the egyptians and saudis out themselves by backing the sunnis strongly with men, arms, cash, etc. We just need to make sure that neither side has a huge advantage and they will turn each other into pulp with minimal effort on our part.

We need some slick behind the curtains work here though, not sure if this admin hasn’t completely destroyed our ability to do such things.

I do think HA has the best comment system around. Being able to create meaningful, sometimes meaningless, conversations between commenters seems a hard code to crack for most other places I’ve been to. – Bmore at 5:55 PM

I see you guys can find each other’s old posts to quote but I can’t seem to understand how you do it (not that I consider it productive to carry on forum grudge matches). I understand the old Web 1.0 sites like Freeperville better. I am still on the fence about whether it’s better to allow or not allow YouBoob vids or pix. Sometimes I really like ‘em, other times I see people just trash a forum that allows them.

The history of HA is permanently archived. It is actually very easy to search out info on prior comments of commenters and or mods here. I do this a great deal in order to know a wee bit more about who it is I am addressing. I did it for your nom. One way, google. Type in Hotair, the posters nom, the word or search for phrasing you are looking for. Some folks will use keywords as an identifier of pages as well. For instance, sometimes if I want to remember a page I will put a certain phrase somewhere on the thread. For example, Meow. If you ever pass rogerb in the halls here, ask him to show you his animated google search technique. rogerb is one of the best at this technique here at HA. You seem to know the comment box stuff well, however if you have any questions about it, I put together this tutorial just for some of the finer points. It may or may not be helpful, just thought I would mention it. ; )

Nice tutorial. Looking at the page source code, I notice the edit buttons have these shortcuts defined (at least with Safari on the Mac). They seem to make more provision for IE and Firefox. You might try these on a Windows box.

ctrl-alt-i for emphasis
ctrl-alt-b for strong
ctrl-alt-s for strike
ctrl-alt-a for link
ctrl-alt-q for blockquote

For CloseTags, there is no keyboard equivalent. They could define it, they choose not to. I wish they allowed the ordered and unordered lists but I can see why they might not want these compound tags on their comment pages.

Of course, now I’ll have to resist the temptation to sneak a few HTML tags past the goalie.

Now that DADT has been repealed Miss Lindsey,you can safely go to Iraq and lose your limbs or maybe your life fighting for people that hate us and are savages.So before you go and send anybody else over there go first.At least then it won’t have been a total loss!